Congressional hearings urgent before more military aid to Israel
Disaster courted by running before thinking
300 New Jersey Avenue, N.W., Suite 900
Washington, D.C. 20001
Phone: 202-465-8728
October 30, 2023
Senator Chuck Schumer
Senate Majority Leader
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-3203
Rep. Mike Johnson
House Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Senator Mitch McConnell
Senate Minority Leader
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-1702
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries
House Minority Leader
2433 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Re: Public Hearings before voting on an additional $14.3 billion military funding for Israel
Dear Congressional leadership:
We strongly urge Congress to hold public hearings before voting on President Joe Biden’s request for an additional $14.3 billion in military funding to Israel to further subsidize its overwhelming military superiority over Hamas in the war that erupted on October 7, 2023.
We believe these questions, among others, should be examined:
1. Why should the United States pay for Israeli military spending incurred because of its stupendous intelligence failure?
2. Does Israel need the additional aid since the United States automatically provides Israel $3-4 billion annually and statutorily guarantees it “a qualitative military advantage” over its neighbors?
3. Can the United States afford the $14.3 billion in additional spending with a national debt soaring past $33 trillion, and annual trillion-dollar budget deficits as far as the eye can see?
4. Israel is among the top 20 global economies in GDP per capita. Could the $14.3 billion be better spent in assisting the world’s 71 million impoverished internally displaced refugees, many created by undeclared wars of the United States?
5. Would the assistance make the United States even more of a co-belligerent with Israel in a war against Hamas and under international law, legally responsible for war crimes or genocide?
6. Should the additional $14.3 billion in deficit or unpaid for funding be conditioned on Israel’s compliance with the laws of war and the Genocide Convention as certified under oath by the President, the Attorney General, the Secretary of State, and the Secretary of Defense with an accompanying written explanation? All these officials have urged the Israeli government to “comply with the laws of war.”
7. How did the Biden Administration come up with the outsized figure of $14.3 billion for a prosperous economic, technological and military superpower having a greater social safety net for its people than does the United States?
Disaster is courted when the United States races to begin or to join military conflicts without measured sober second thoughts born of hearings and debates that entertain diverse views. The House held no hearings on the ill-fated Gulf of Tonkin Resolution justifying the ill-fated Vietnam War. The Resolution passed unanimously with but 40 minutes of debate. Senate action was only modestly less rash in voting 98-2 to open the gates to a trillion-dollar military disaster. Congress never inquired whether the Executive Branch’s dubious Domino Theory was fantasy. Indeed, Vietnam today is a semi-ally of the United States against China.
Congress held no hearings before approving the 2001 AUMF with but one dissenting vote. After spending more than $ 2 trillion fighting the Taliban over 20 years, the United States de facto conceded defeat with an even more militant Taliban version of the Taliban now in power in Afghanistan in 2021.
Hearings will not place Israel in jeopardy. Hamas is no existential threat. And all the world can see Israel daily pulverizing Gaza, and its civilian population, half of whom are children, by air and land attacks.
Sincerely,
Bruce Fein, Esq.
Ralph Nader, Esq.
The United States would be best advised to not become a partner in Israel’s war crimes and genocide against innocent Palestinians.
As an American taxpayer, I do strongly object to my tax money being used to further Israel’s brazen crimes against humanity.
Since Thucydides, the motto of the oppressors has been the same: "The strong will do what they can and the weak will suffer what they must."
Athenian taxpayers did not object to the Athenian hegemony, the unjust decimation of Mytilene and the genocide enacted by Athens on the innocent Mytileneans for refusing to pay taxes to Athens in lieu of Sparta. The resulting uproar of the other Aegean islanders in the Peloponnesian War brought doom on Athens.
We The People of Reason should take lessons from history.
We are well capable of it.
/s/ Emre Serbest